An experiment in Widefield Toucam Mosaic

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Because the FOV of the Toucam is equal to a 6mm EP and with the focal reducer helping make it 12mm, I wanted to go even wider.

But this cannot be done with the ED80, so I made up a mosaic of Carina using 9 seperate images.

This image involved 4 hours of imaging last night, and 3 hours today of stacking, photoshop and hand-stitching to make the Mosaic.

Unfortunately the nebula has had to be heavily reduced to get rid of the terribly bright Amp Glow that showed up in the corner of each Mosaic section, which made the whole image ghastly, so I had to cut back 70% of the light to make it almost presentable.

Quality further reduced to meet the 150k limit for posting images.

Atleast I got my widefield

ED80, Modded Toucam 840k, little Toucam IR Filter, 9 Mosaic segments @ 3 x 120 second frames each.

Click on opened image to enlarge

[Ric]

Great mosaic Ken, I like the colour in the nebula and it's nicely defined as well.

A top effort

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Thanks Ric.

I'm running out of ideas of what to try next with the Toucam

Pity I had to darken the image to get rid of all the Amp Glow, as there is lots of Neb in the segments.

This is the original Mosaic before I adjusted the curves, lots of Yuk!:

[Ric]

You mentioned in another thread about chasing planetary nebs. Some of them would be an nice challenge for the Toucam.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by Ric

You mentioned in another thread about chasing planetary nebs. Some of them would be an nice challenge for the Toucam.

Good idea Ric

Now for more clear sky to give them a go

[Ric]

Eek, I see what you mean about the amp glow.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by Ric

Eek, I see what you mean about the amp glow.

Yep, and the longer the exposure, the worse it gets.
If I image without any filters I can get more neb at shorter exposures, but blobby stars. It's a trade off.

[JohnG (John)]

Hi Ken

Would the taking of Darks and Flats be of any help in removing the Amp Glow, bearing in mind I know nothing about Toucams.

Cheers

[Garyh]

Nice going Ken, looks great as a wider field image!!! have you ever thought of attaching the toucam to a camera lense, that would be interesting too!!
cheers

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by JohnG

Hi Ken

Would the taking of Darks and Flats be of any help in removing the Amp Glow, bearing in mind I know nothing about Toucams.

Cheers

John, that particular question has raised its head a few times. Unfortunately Flats and darks do not remove Amp Glow. They do a great job on Hot pixels etc, but the only thing that removes Amp Glow (apart from preventing it in the first place with the 'Amp Off' mod) is to remove it manually in 'Gradient Exterminator'.

I have tried the program with uncessful results, whereas Bert has tremendous success with it.

So, rather than email off all my pics to Bert and give him more work to do, I just do what I can in PhotoShop. If I had a really excellent image that I wanted to get the absolute best out of, then I would ask Bert to help.

Originally Posted by Garyh

Nice going Ken, looks great as a wider field image!!! have you ever thought of attaching the toucam to a camera lense, that would be interesting too!!
cheers

Yep Gary, thought about it.

But I don't have a camera lens

So it stays a thought.

[Dr Nick (Nick)]

Nice... Sort of...

Would it not be possible to try to make artificcial flat fields for the seperate images and try to reduce the glow?

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by Dr Nick

Nice... Sort of...

Would it not be possible to try to make artificcial flat fields for the seperate images and try to reduce the glow?

As already stated, Nick, Amp Glow cannot be removed by flat fields, dark frames or any other flavour frames, except to remove it in processing using Gradient removal. There are 2 ways and I have tried both of them unsuccessfully. I just need to practice more.